GSA Joins H20 Summit at WHO Headquarters in Geneva
On 19 and 20 June, GSA CEO, Dr. Mariam Jashi, and Partnership Lead, Simone Mancini attended the H20 Summit, hosted by the G20 & G7 Health and Development Partnership at the World Health Organization headquarter in Geneva, under the guiding theme "Rebuilding Public Trust for Global Health – Coming Together for SDG30". The G20/G7 Partnership, convened by former Member of the European Parliament Alan Donnelly and the Executive Director Hatice Küçük Beton, advocates for collaboration between G20 and G7 health and finance ministers to promote healthcare delivery and synergies amongst diverse stakeholders. The H20 Summit provides a unique high-level platform for dialogue between policymakers, academia, civil society and international organizations.
WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus opened the summit highlighting the urgent need for innovation and partnerships in the context of changing disease burdens and funding disruptions. The two-day summit was joined by prominent leaders in the global health landscape including, among others, Sir Jeremy Farrar, newly appointed Assistant Director-General (ADG) of Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Control, H.E. Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General, Africa CDC, Dr. Catharina Boehme, Assistant Director-General, External Relations and Governance, Dr. Georg Kippels, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Health, Germany, WHO.
The current critical context for global health, geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty, and significant reductions in health and development aid were preponderant themes in this year’s discussions. The summit focused on the future of global health and finance, with an emphasis on building resilient, sustainable health systems and restoring public trust. Dr Jashi lead the breakout sessions on “New tools to guide innovative investments in global health”, that contributed to the final conclusion of the summit. Outcomes from this year’s summit will inform both the UN General Assembly’s upcoming high-level meeting on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in September and the G20 Leaders’ Summit in South Africa in November.
From left to right: Dr Mariam Jashi; Roland Göede, Co-founder and CEO, Virchow Foundation; Hatice Küçük Beton, Executive Director of the G20/G7 health and Development Partnership; Alan Donnelly, Convenor of the G20 & G7 Health and Development Partnership; Simone Mancini, GSA Partnership Lead and Coordinator of the Regional Sepsis Alliances.
GSA also engaged with the distinguished guests and speakers of the summit. Both H.E. Dr. Jaleela bint Alsayed Jawad Hasan, Minister of Health, Kingdom of Bahrain, and H.E. Amb. Matthew Wilson, Permanent Representative of Barbados to the UN, expressed interest in collaborating with GSA on sepsis related initiatives. The interlocutors received copies of the 2030 Global Agenda for Sepsis. The summit was also the opportunity to reinforce the relations with other strategic partners of GSA, such as Virchow Foundation and UNITE Parliamentarian Network for Global Health, and other relevant organisations such as CEPI.
In addition to high-level policy dialogue, two important reports were launched at the summit:
The NCDs and Mental Health Global Legislators Report, which provides a practical toolkit for lawmakers to advance preventative health policy. NCDs represent a high-risk factor for sepsis development: underlying injuries or non-communicable diseases are linked to 15.8 million sepsis cases, and nearly half of all sepsis-related deaths.
The Health Taxonomy Report, suggests a new investment framework to help stakeholders and interested funding partners align with public health goals.
GSA had previously contributed to the G20/G7 Partnership’s Global Legislator Report on antimicrobial resistance, where consensus was build on the necessity to tackle sepsis in any policy targeting AMR.
On the fringes of the summit, Dr Jashi also met with WHO’s Lee A. Wallis, Lead of Emergency and Critical Care, and with Teri Reynolds, Head of the Clinical Services and Systems Unit, to discuss several points of collaboration, including the ACAN Network and the upcoming World Sepsis Day, on September 13.
GSA remains committed to engaging further with global partners such as WHO and the G20 & G7 Health and Development Partnership, to ensure sepsis is recognized as a priority within the broader health and development agendas, and to advocate for resilient health systems that leave no one behind.